The Portsmouth Sinfonia performs Handel's Messiah

What they've said"I was asked recently which one person I would most like to vanish. At first I was horrified, I thought, 'I can't answer that'. Then I realised I could: [Ryanair boss] Michael O'Leary!"Violinist Nicola Benedetti on Ryanair's decision to make passengers buy separate seats for their violins

On this day…

… in 1760, wedding bells were ringing in Vienna for the 'father of the symphony', Franz Joseph Haydn and his bride, Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia Keller. However, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Haydn was in love with Maria's younger sister Therese, who had become a nun a few years before, it wasn't to be a fairytale match. Haydn claimed it wasn't a happy marriage, with neither party remaining faithful to the other.

'Music, like every other art, but especially music, makes us desire that everyone, as many people as possible, take part in our experience of pleasure,' wrote Count Leo Tolstoy in his diary in October 1910. This Saturday at 12.15pm on Radio 3, Katie Derham explores the writer's influence on Russian composers including Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.

And finally…

In the Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine, Mark Pappenheim digs out some of the more, erm, memorable performances of Handel's Messiah. Here's one from the self-styled 'world's worst orchestra'…

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